i'll be there for you
by Aichihuahua
Summary: She stumbled out of a forest; naked, afraid, and with no clue as to why she was there in the first place. He walked away from an inferno; naked, afraid, and with no clue as to why he wasn't ash in the frame of a molten cruiser. Seeing Jordan stumble his way into the supernatural world of Beacon Hills leaves Lydia with no choice but to attempt to help him the way no one helped her.
1. one

The second the explosion of bullets rang from the gun, Lydia dropped to the ground with Stiles in the sheriff's office.

She could barely make out the sounds of the scuffle over the pounding heartbeat in her ears. Another shot and another of her screams echoed through the station while a grunt followed it from the doorway of the office. Lydia's attention whipped to the sound and saw the sheriff curled in on himself against the frame. Stiles, struggling to drag his father away from further harm, gripped his uninjured arm.

Lydia crawled to them while trying to calm her breathing. She reached the pair and clutched Stiles' arm as she peered through the doorway. The fight appeared to have ceased as Deputy Haigh lay prone on the ground, his face bloody from the assault of the soot covered man now crouched over him, his chest pulsing with ragged breaths.

"Is that- Parrish?" Sheriff Stilinski's gravely question was stark against the tension in the station.

The man's face jerked in their direction and Lydia gasped in recognition. It seemed to have shocked Parrish into realizing his position and the recent events as he pushed himself off Haigh. From Lydia's distance, she could see a slight shake in his shoulders as he attempted to maintain as much modesty as he could while gathering himself from the floor.

"He tried to kill me. Tied me up in my patrol car and lit it on fire. He tried to kill me." The deputy's voice was winded and rough.

Lydia helped Stiles support the sheriff who was now calling out orders.

"Lock Haigh up for questioning and get Parrish something to cover himself up!"

She and the Stilinski's waded through the flurry of officers in action. She took one last look over her shoulder and watched Parrish, now wrapped in a shock blanket, slowly make his way into the sheriff's office and close the door.

"Are you okay, Dad?" Asked Stiles as they walked toward the sheriff's car.

"It's only my shoulder. I'll be fine." Placated the sheriff.

Lydia wanted to show her concern for Mr. Stilinski, but her thoughts couldn't move past Parrish, and it wasn't just because she had gotten a view of him she had or had not fantasized about after their first encounter.

"Parrish wasn't killed in the fire," muttered Lydia.

"Maybe he did. Maybe we've cracked the mystery of the deputy! He's a zombie!" Snarked Stiles.

"Like a zombie could beat someone up like that without falling apart," She shot back and shook her head. "He's something else. Something - different. And I don't think _he_ even knows what he is. He looked pretty shaken up. Like, past 'I almost died' shaken up."

The three reached the car and the teenagers gently maneuvered Mr. Stilinski inside.

"I think I'll stay back. Make our ever-widening circle of confidence one person bigger," said Lydia.

"About time. Always seemed like he half knew what was going on anyway. Felt bad about never letting him in all the way." Sighed the sheriff as Stiles hurried behind the wheel.

"You should call Scott. Give him a heads up," said Stiles. He started the engine and drove off towards the hospital as Lydia pulled out her phone and turned back for the station.

* * *

WIth plans of getting Parrish to Derek's loft in place, Lydia slid her phone into her pocket and knocked on the sheriff's office door. A beat went by without a reply, so she took that as an invitation and slowly opened the door. The man was sitting on the couch, the blanket around his shoulders covering him almost to his knees, while his gaze was lost in the air in front of him. His barely creased brow the only indication that his mind wasn't totally wandering.

Lydia's stomach simultaneously fluttered in nerves and felt pierced by the lost look on his face. They had rarely ever, if ever at all, spoken to each other about something other than dead bodies or soon to be dead bodies. Vaguely flirty quips at crime scenes notwithstanding. He would not go to a practical stranger after a near death experience slash possible miracle.

She remembered her own brush with death; going to sleep a human and waking up as something else. Instead of sitting alone in an office, she was lying alone in a hospital bed. She was alone night after night and day after day with only that devil of a man in her head as the closest link to whatever she was. Everyone called her crazy, even those close to her now. Left by herself to wander onto lifeless bodies in one waking nightmare after the other. The pack was there for her. In a way. But only after she found the victims of the pack's enemies. The long-soughted discovery of what she was coming from the mouth of a supernatural serial killer didn't help. The entire span of her time as an unknowing banshee she has felt, and there are times she still feels, that no one else was there for her. No one else could understand this _not knowing_.

He needed someone who knew.

"Deputy?"

Her soft voice spurred him out of his trance and brought his eyes to hers.

"Lydia."He shook his head as if to shake out the thoughts that mulled his mind and straightened his back. He still looked out of it, but he seemed to be pulling himself together now that he wasn't alone.

"Do you mind?" She asked pointed to the space next to him on the couch.

"Uh. Yeah, go ahead." He stammered and shuffled as close to the arm opposite her as he could while also attempting to pull the blanket closer around himself.

Lydia bit her lip as they sat in silence, she felt Parrish's gaze on her cheek as she looked over the office searching for the right words to say. Her mind was blank as to how to proceed. He needed someone warm and soft to put him at ease. She couldn't do this. She was forceful and demanding and everything that was the opposite of the comforting type. She always admired that exact softness Allison exuded even while strapped with a quiver and knives.

"Are you okay?" She asked finally facing him, that seemed like the right way to start.

"Honestly? I don't know. I don't -" Parrish shook his head while his eyes never wavered from hers, "I should be dead right now. I'm pretty freaked out." His eyes were a clear crystal that shone nothing but sincerity and vulnerability. It was like she could breathe again. For whatever reason he trusted her. Lydia could do this.

"Do you still have an open mind?" Lydia looked straight back into his eyes, trying to emote as much confidence and trust through her own gaze as she could.

"Of course. Probably now more than ever." He answered. "Why? Did you - Did you have a vision about this? About what happened to me?"

She quirked a brow and bit back a smile at his belief in her psychic abilities.

"No, but I know someone who might have an idea about how what happened and why you're on the list. So take a shower, get dressed, and let's go. I'll wait for you in the bullpen." She jumped to her feet causing him to crane his neck to keep her gaze.

He gave her a small nod and a deep, "Okay."

Lydia returned her most encouraging smile before turning on her heel and leaving the room in search of the biggest coffee mug in the station.

* * *

**AN:** Marrish is my new obsession, and so I had to write something for them. I have my own theory of what Parrish is and would love to write a thing with it, but we'll see.

Hope you liked it :) Comments are always appreciated


	2. two

Jordan sat in his patrol car staring at his outstretched hands, still seeing the plastic cutting into his wrists and the flames singeing his skin. Or at least he thought he saw it happen. He wasn't so sure any more.

He remembered the heat. The painful heat that wrenched the air from this lungs. _But did it burn?_ He thought. He couldn't be recall.

He remembered the fear though. Of that he was sure.

Werewolves, banshees, kitsunes, werecoyotes, supernatural assassins, and a number of other things. He expected to make some kind of discovery in this town, but never this. He let out an exhausted breath and reached into his pocket for his keys when he spotted the red head exit the warehouse.

"Ok, ready to go," said Lydia as she slid into the passenger seat of the cruiser. "Thanks for offering me a ride back. I'd totally get it if you wanted to go home as soon as possible. Let everything settle in before jumping back into it all again tomorrow."

"It's no problem. So, how do we get you home?" Asked Jordan as he pulled out onto to road.

"Actually we're getting me to the Stilinski house. This new code needs to be cracked as soon as possible, and Stiles can help." Lydia rubbed her temple to lessen the ever-present tension that now seemed to pulse behind her skull.

"I know where that is, but are you sure? It's pretty late," questioned Jordan with a concerned brow. He snuck a glance at the young woman next to him. Her tired eyes watched the buildings pass by the passenger window. Her usually immaculate appearance now rumpled after the day's events, wisps of auburn hair that had fallen from her updo grazed her neck and cheeks. The sudden urge to twine the curls in his fingers surged through his arm. He forced his focus back onto the road and tightened his grip on the wheel.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Like I said, 'as soon as possible.' Besides, with all this new information, the last thing I could do right now is sleep." Lydia threw him a sardonic smirk.

"If you say so."

They rode a mile or two in comfortable silence. The lack of conversation allowed Jordan's thoughts to drift again.

The blunt knock to the back of the head. Waking up with a spinning head, a ringing in his ears, and nausea that almost dissipated in way of panic at the sight of his bound wrists. The man, whom he had worked beside every day, dousing him in gasoline and throwing a match onto his lap. The flames engulfing him and melting off his skin.

No. That last part didn't happen. Because he was - Not human.

"Can I ask you a question?" Asked Jordan.

His hesitant request awoke Lydia from her reverie and she spun to him, "Okay," she affirmed before biting her lip in preparation.

"Did you - Did you always know you were a banshee?"

Lydia let out a scoff, "It was practically only yesterday that I found out what I was. It all didn't kick in until about two years ago…" She trailed off.

"Just like that?"

"Not exactly," she said before pausing again after a maddened expression flashed across her features. She worried her bottom lip as she studied him. Jordan was about to apologize for digging into such a personal matter before she huffed and continued.

"Derek's asshole of an uncle, Peter, attacked me during his rabid werewolf rampage, and instead of turning me into one too, it was like he flipped a switch inside my head. I'd hallucinate, hear things, wake up in places I had no memory of going to. I thought I was going insane." Her voice cracked at the end and she turned back toward the window for a moment to compose herself.

"But I wasn't. And the hallucinations don't really happen anymore. I only had those because I was sort of possessed by Peter at the time." Jordan almost lost control of the car at her confession. From his peripheral, he caught a look at her pursed lips as she mulled over the memory.

"Possessed? Like a ghost? Did he die?"

"Yeah, but sadly it didn't stick," she grumbled.

The sheriff's house appeared ahead and Jordan pulled into the driveway. He shifted the gear into park before settling back into his seat. He turned to Lydia, who appeared stuck in her thoughts, fiddled with a strand from her ponytail while she stared at the dashboard with an unfocused gaze.

"We're here."

Lydia snapped out of her daze and perked up. She grabbed her bag from the floor and cradled it in her lap when she faced him.

"Thanks again for the ride," she said with a grateful smile.

"Of course." Jordan returned a warm smile of his own. He watched as Lydia reached for the door's handle, pulling it, and opened the door an inch before stilling for a few seconds and then letting go. She twisted back to him, a strand of hair stuck to a glossed lip that she primed in determination.

"I can be your supernatural emergency contact."

"Wh-What?" Sputtered Jordan, his eyebrows creased in confusion.

Lydia rolled her eyes and looked away as she clarified herself, "Like what you asked Meredith that day at the station; when you asked her if there was anyone she could call. I can be that for you." Her voice was soft at the end. Her large bright eyes shifted back to him. She waited a moment before slightly leaning in and saying, "I can understand what you might be going through. If you ever need to talk to someone about it…" She trailed off and nervously shrugged a shoulder.

Jordan could only stare back at her, one elbow braced on his seat and the hand of his other arm still clutching the wheel. He was still trying to swap his label of her as a _psychic_ with _banshee_, so his fear that she might have been reading his mind and hearing his racing thoughts about what happened to him lessens somewhat. _Could banshees read minds?_, he wondered. When Lydia didn't speak up confirming his question, he released a sigh. She was offering him exactly what he needed, and that slightly settled the anxiety that had been bubbling in his chest since the fire died out.

At his silence, she pulled back and fanned a hand at him as she shook her head, "It's okay. It would be weird. Forget about it. Derek would probably be better for this kind of thing anyway." She had pushed open the door and was sliding off the seat when Jordan stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

"Lydia!" He gently pulled her back into the car, his grip sliding from her wrist to her palm, "Sorry, I was just - Yeah. That would be great."

Her guarded expression faded into a small smile and she nodded, "Okay."

Jordan's smile quirked as he remembered the orders she gave him earlier at the station to snap him out of his funk.

"Give me your phone," ordered Lydia again. She slipped the fingers he had unknowingly been holding from their resting place on the seat between them. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. She punched in her information and returned it to him; he let out a small chuckle when he saw that she had given herself the moniker, _The Psychic_.

"Goodnight, Deputy," she said as she slid from the car.

"Night," Jordan replied with a wave.

He reversed out of the sheriff's driveway but idled in the front of the house to wait for her to go inside. She rang the doorbell before throwing a goodbye wave to signal him that it was okay for him to leave.

Stiles opened the door and let her in, then stepping around her to get a glimpse of who brought her.

Jordan pushed on the gas and began his ride home.

* * *

Lydia had just finished filling Stiles in on what had happened while he was with his father when her phone beeped. She fished it out of her bag and grinned at the message.

_You can call me Jordan._

She saved his number under _The Deputy_.

* * *

**AN:** I know Lydia said "Call Parrish" in that one episode, but that was to Stiles who probably got it from his dad so I think my story can still take place within canon. And I'm sorry if I messed up the timeline of when she got bit. I'm still not totally clear on the timeline of the show.

And to the guest who left the review on the first edition of this story (I had to delete the first version I published because there was a glitch with the category settings) about what my Parrish theory was, I'm with you on the phoenix theory. At least in terms of the show.

But in relation to this story, he may or _may not be _a phoenix. I have my own headcanon of what Jordan is, and his backstory that I barely introduced in this chapter (I hope you noticed) is what I want to unravel through this story.

Thanks for reading! Reviews are always appreciated :)


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